The King Is Dead (Oneshot)
by Storychan
Summary: In the days following Kiryu's death, a discouraged Jack wonders why he ever thought he and Team Satisfaction could make Satellite theirs in the first place.


_The King Is Dead_: A YGO 5Ds Oneshot

By: Storychan

Plot: In the days following Kiryu's death, a discouraged Jack wonders why he ever thought he and Team Satisfaction could make Satellite theirs in the first place.

Jack sat on the dusty prop throne in the abandoned theater, trying to figure out when it was that everything had gone so wrong. He'd found this place, with its musty curtains and scraps of playbills of yesteryear, when he was a child, wandering around Satellite in the hours before Martha called him home for dinner. It was where he'd always come since then when he wanted to be alone. He liked to sit on the plaster throne and imagine what it would be like when he was a _real _king.

He'd decided, years ago, that was his goal: to be King – of what, at the time, he didn't know. But, he did know that when the bullies he met on the streets – the ones with the sneering faces, who had been banished to this godforsaken island, not born here, as he was – told him that he was just Satellite garbage, doomed to a life of picking through Neo Domino's garbage – he knew they were wrong. He had to be destined for more than a life of starvation and poverty in this dirty town, of cowering and hiding from Security like a dog amongst the ruins. There just had to be _more_…..right?

_Someday it will be different! _he had screamed as they dug their boots into his back. _Someday I will be King, above all of you! _They had looked at him as if he were a lunatic. And why not? He'd had no idea then how to achieve his goal. He'd just sat on this rotting chair, built by some long-dead dramaturge, and conjured up fantasies, in which he had courtiers and servants instead of black eyes and a rumbling in his belly that Martha could do nothing to soothe with the resources available to her.

But then, one day, Kiryu had found him. Kiryu, with eyes wide with dreams, and (unlike Jack) a real plan on how to achieve them. _Have you had enough of this fake kingdom? _he'd asked, gesturing with wide arms to the ruined theater in which they stood. _Don't you want to be a real King?_

Kiryu had explained, at length, his plan. He told Jack that he and Yusei and Crow could be the Kings of Satellite. As a team – Team Satisfaction – they could vanquish the duel gangs that ruled this place with an iron fist (like knights in a storybook!), conquer the land and make it their own. Oh, it had sounded so wonderful. And they'd nearly done it, too. For a time, Jack had been high on success, starry-eyed with dreams of making Satellite a better place for everyone as its benevolent ruler – but then, he'd come crashing back to Earth, the dizzying heights they'd reached together falling to a devastating low.

Kiryu had gone mad with power, drunk with bloodlust. He'd taken it too far, become the exact sort of tyrant they'd sought to overthrow in the first place. When he'd seen the first twinge of dark madness in Kiryu's eyes, he and Crow had fled. Yusei had stayed, tried to reason with their once-fearless leader, who now was ruled by paranoia. Jack could have told him it was a lost cause – he was fairly sure he _had _told him.

But, when it came down to it, Jack still wanted to believe. Wanted to believe that the tale Kiryu had spun (not unlike the fairy tales that made Jack dream of kingship in the first place) of how their futures could be could still come true. Wanted to believe that this wasn't all there was in the world. Wanted to believe that together, they could accomplish more than anyone in Satellite had ever dreamed possible.

And so when Yusei had contacted him and Crow, pleading with them to take this one last chance to save Kiryu and salvage what remained of the dream they had shared, he'd returned. He'd sought Kiryu out, tried to convince him (like the others) to turn back before it was too late. But soon he realized it already _was _too late – Kiryu was too far gone, too violent, too much for them to fix. Still, Yusei, eternally selfless, had hatched a plan to turn himself in to Security in order to spare Kiryu the agony of the Facility.

It hadn't worked. Kiryu had been dragged away, screaming of treason. Jack had tried to comfort Yusei after he broke down that night, horrified by his own failure. And when they'd tried to visit Kiryu in the facility (for hope springs eternal), they'd been told he didn't want to see them.

But they'd kept trying, hadn't they? Because this couldn't be _it_, could it? What about their friendship? What about their rise to greatness? Kiryu had promised them the world, hadn't he? Hadn't he _sworn _to Jack that they wouldn't let this city eat them alive, that they'd come out on top, that they wouldn't be like all those adults they'd grown up around, with the broken eyes that flashed with fear whenever gang leaders or Security officers crossed their path? Hadn't he said they would be _different_?

And then on one of their visits to the Facility, on the day Jack thought Kiryu might _finally _agree to speak to them, the guard had smirked and told them Kiryu was dead.

_Dead. _

It couldn't be….could it? How could Kiryu, who had always been more alive than any of them, who had shook them out of the living death of complacency with this wretched life, who was so young, so strong, be….._gone_, just like that? At first, Jack had insisted that it was a lie, that they'd moved Kiryu to a different Facility and just didn't want to tell them, or that Kiryu was just angry with them and playing a cruel joke, but….eventually, he'd had to accept it.

Although they had said that they would rule Satellite equally, as four kings, Jack knew that Kiryu, being their leader, the man with the plan, was always the _real _King. And now he was dead – and all of Jack's hopes had died with him.

_What now? _Jack thought miserably. _How can I become a king now, with Satisfaction gone? _He couldn't speak to Yusei or Crow after what happened. He couldn't face their failure. He couldn't face the fact that Kiryu, who had made him believe that they wouldn't fail like the man in the story about the bridge, who'd made him believe that they could _change _things around here, had met the same bitter end as a thousand Satellite-born men before him. Nobody tried to rebel anymore. Nobody tried to stand up to the forces that kept them downtrodden, because they knew _exactly _where it would get them – a cell or a coffin.

_We're not going to be like that, _Kiryu had whispered in the starry night. _We're not going to be victims of the system, we won't be part of their game. We'll be more. We'll fight fate. We'll be kings, and everyone will tell our story._

But, the story was over now. _Time to close the curtains, _Jack thought bitterly. _Romeo drank his poison, it's over, everyone clap like you haven't heard the same story a million bloody times before and go home._

Why had he thought it would work? Why had he let Kiryu get his hopes up in the first place?

"DAMN you, Kiryu!" Jack screamed to the empty room, his voice reverberating off the crumbling walls. He was irrationally angry at Kiryu for dying. "How could you die?!" Jack continued to scream ineffectually. "How could you bloody leave me here to….._this_?!"

Every actor, director, or playwright who had ever worked in this abandoned theater where he sat was dead now, wiped out in Zero Reverse. Jack's parents, and the parents of every child he knew, had died that day, too. Even the legendary King of Games, the hero of a thousand stories, was dead. And Jack felt as if he himself were dead, too. _We're all dead, _he thought, _every one of us in Satellite. Because this existence we eke out – dumpster-diving, starving to death, living in fear, forbidden to duel, forbidden to own D-Wheels, forbidden to ever leave this wasteland we call home – it's not really living. This isn't a life. This is nothing. _

The only time he'd ever felt truly alive was when he'd stormed into the hideouts of duel gangs with Team Satisfaction and dueled for honor, for prestige, for the sake of his friends, for the good of all. Now, those days were over, and the dark cloud they'd once removed from his life had returned. He felt crushed beneath it, suffocating to death.

And suddenly Jack realized something: _he had to get out_. As long as he lived in Satellite, he'd be crushed by the weight of the memories of the friend – and the dream – that he'd lost. Kiryu had said that they could make Satellite a place they could be proud of. But, Jack saw now that Satellite would never change. Satellite and its tyrants, Security, would never stop sucking the life out of those who lived here. Neo Domino City would always use Satellite as its garbage dump, its penal colony, its sacrifice to preserve its own life. Satellite would always be the place where Jack's dreams had died.

_But what if he found a new dream?_

What if he could escape to Neo Domino City and start a new life, where nobody knew about his past (and nobody knew how he'd failed his friend)? What if he became King of _that _city instead of this one? He couldn't live in this city another day. Not when every street carried memories of Kiryu and his broken promises, Team Satisfaction and their failed revolution. Team Satisfaction had failed to save Satellite. Why had he ever thought Satellite could be saved?

"That's it," Jack declared. "I'm done with this place. I'm out. I'm gone. I give up!" _But how could he escape? _he wondered. Was _there any way out, other than the route Kiryu had taken?_

Jack pondered. And suddenly, an answer appeared out of the shadows like a devil, in the form of a short, elfish man with lavender hair and the face of a clown. He introduced himself as Jaeger.

"Would you like to be King of Neo Domino City?" he cackled, as if he had read Jack's mind. "Then, there's something you must do for us…"

Jack knew that by agreeing, he was damning himself. But what was damnation to a man who already lived in hell? Kiryu had offered a way to escape this hellish Satellite life – but his way had failed. And now, Jack decided, he would take any way out he could, no matter what bridges he had to burn or promises he had to break to do it. After all, the biggest promise of all had already been broken.

Kiryu had promised that Satellite would be their kingdom. Now, he was dead. _And now, _Jack realized, _the would-be King Jack of Satellite – and all of his friendships – must die, so that King Jack of Neo Domino City may live._

Jack took one less furtive glance at the city where he had been born and raised before he turned his back on it for what he thought would be forever. "The king is dead," he muttered. "Long live the king."


End file.
